[mad]Atle Grahl-Madsen

Name forms:

Entries (12):

Biographical notes:

Atle Grahl-Madsen (1922-1990) was a prominent scholar in the
field on international law, specialising in the status of refugees.
A collection of articles written in his honour was published last
year. The title may suggest Grahl-Madsen’s professional
interests as a jurist: The Living law of nations: essays on
refugees, minorities, indigenous peoples and the human rights of
other vulnerable groups in memory of Atle Grahl-Madsen. The
book is edited by Gudmundur Alfredsson and
Peter Macalister-Smith (Kehl: Engel,
1996); Macalister-Smith has written for the Flag Bulletin
[tfb] and contributed on flags to the
Nordic Journal of International Law when Grahl-Madsen was the
editor of that journal.

Grahl-Madsen became Cand. jur. from the University of Oslo
in 1947, and received his doctorate from the same university in 1967
on a thesis entitled “The Status of Refugees in International
Law”. From 1948 to 1949 he worked as a Resettlement Officer
for the International Refugee Organisation in Germany. From 1952
to 1972 he had his own law firm in Bergen, while continuing to
work on the status of refugees. He was a consultant to
international organisations and governments. From 1967 to 1976 he
was Principal Lecturer at the Norwegian School of Economics and
Business Administration in Bergen. From 1978 to 1980 he was
Professor of Law at the University of Uppsala and Director of the
Swedish Institute of International Law. Finally, from 1980 until
his death he was Professor of Law at the University of Bergen,
Norway. He also taught in the USA and Germany.

In the field of flag research, Grahl-Madsen’s most
important contribution was his work on Norwegian flag legislation.
He proposed to revise the legislation concerning Norwegian flags,
and put forward an new system of flags. For this purpose he
produced a systematic collection of current and historical
legislation concerning flags in Norway, a work that is still
extremely valuable as a work of reference. He also wrote on
Norwegian municipal flags and the legal status of the Aland
Islands flag. Another interesting piece is his “(Draft)
international flag standard” (Bergen, 1973
[mad73a] and 1974
[mad74]) «comprising the designation,
classification, sizes, and colours of flags.» To the
Flag Bulletin he contributed articles on the relationship
of flags to heraldry and on flag usage in Norway (published after
his death).

Judging from other things he published, Grahl-Madsen’s
interests were diverse. He wrote works such as “Scangrid:
geographical grid, polar grid, country codes, city codes, alpha
and alphanumerical codes, new standard calendar” (Bergen,
1986), “A new standard calendar” (Bergen, 1984),
“UNICODE 4: Alphabetical and numerical country codes”
(Bergen, 1974), “Uniform vehicle registration system —
EUROCODE” (Bergen, 1971), and he also wrote pieces on the
standardisation of ranks of officers in the NATO countries.
Clearly, he was a person with a high sense of order, a man who
liked to see things properly and orderly arranged.

One might say that this interest for systematisation is
reflected in some of his designs for new US state flags. Note,
for instance, the way things are orderly and neatly stacked and
arranged in the proposed flags for Connecticut, Oregon, and
Wisconsin. Another striking feature of his proposals is the use
of unusual colours, orange and purple, often together in the same
design.

Grahl-Madsen’s “A Contribution to New Glory”
[mad75] was his submission to the “New
Glory” project launched by the Director of the Santa Barbara
Museum of Art on the occasion of the Bicentennial of the American
Revolution. The idea was to «foster better standards of
design» for the flags of states, counties, cities, etc.
Grahl-Madsen presented design ideas for 24 new state flags. I
believe his compendium of proposed flags was also presented at the
International Congress of Vexillology in Washington.

Entries (1):

[mcs]Peter Macalister-Smith

Name forms:

Entries (1):

Biographical notes:

Dr. Mcalister-Smith has written on
flags of the Red Cross and Red Crescent for the Flag
Bulletin [tfb], and contributed
an article on the flag of the United Nations
[mcs86] to the Nordic Journal of
International Law when Grahl-Madsen was the editor of that
journal.Jan Oskar Engene, 18 Jul 1997